


The Stars May Be Bright, but the Fire is Brighter

by Ciel_Leon



Series: Doorways to the Velvet Room [2]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Demons, Bored Akira is chaos, Chaos, Demon Summoning, Demon!Akira, Demons, Fantasy, Gen, Guns, M/M, Magic, No Beta, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poor Goro, Sporadic Updates, We Die Like Men, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 06:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15790965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciel_Leon/pseuds/Ciel_Leon
Summary: Summoning a demon is dangerous and most often deadly, and Goro appreciates that the majority of the general public know and understand this.Of course, there are also those fools in the world who think that they are that one exception, that the ritual won't kill them, the demon won't kill them, and they will somehow manage to come out of a demon summoning unscathed with a Hellspawn in tow.These are the people he hunts.  The ones that think that they're above the law and all powerful- prepared to break a law that results in an immediate death sentence if caught.Of course, Goro just hunts summoners, he's not a demon hunter.  In fact, there hasn't been a successful summoning for almost two centuries.Goro's luck just happens to be the worst type ever.





	The Stars May Be Bright, but the Fire is Brighter

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, my obligatory Demon AU appears! Now with World Building!

When the taste of sulfur hit the back of his tongue, Goro knew he was too late.

He didn't stop moving however, he could feel the arm of the man he was grappling with move in an attempt to place him in a choke hold, and he didn't hesitate to throw an elbow in the mans solar plexus with a low snarl.  The grip the man had on his right arm relaxed just enough that Goro was able to shift his hand and fire the gun he was holding in his right hand. With a bullet in the foot, his attackers grip slackened completely and Goro twisted, ducking down to jam a shoulder in his assailant’s gut before shifting his center of gravity enough to send the man over his back and colliding with tiled floor.  With his opponent winded, it gave Goro enough time to shoot them in the head before sprinting towards the basement of the house he was in.

One guard in the foyer was a stupid move, but it also meant that the rest of his quarry, five illegal magical practitioners were all downstairs.  Between the rising volume of chanting Goro could hear as he neared the door to the basement and the silencer on his gun, there was a chance that the fight hadn’t been heard.

Pulling open the door to the basement Goro quickly took in his surroundings.

The basement was dark, illuminated mostly by candles placed on the border of a summoning circle surrounded by three men and two women.  Their chanting rose in pitch as the lines of the summoning circle flared an unforgiving red and Goro took aim.

The gun was steady in his hands, almost an extension of himself even as he pulled the trigger.

This was a no win scenario for the summoners.  Summoning rituals were deadly on their own and had to be completed once started, magicians couldn’t hesitate half-way through or quit, and the ritual would continuously drain their cores until their magic and then their life force was completely gone, leaving nothing but an empty shell.  To make matters even more complicated, a ritual started by multiple people, had to be completed by the same number of people. This was because summoning rituals were meant to take equal amounts of magic from each participant. The magical signatures of each individual were unique, and if one person died in the middle of a summoning, the ritual would become unbalanced, draining even more magic from the remaining practitioners in its attempt to fill the void left by the loss of another magical core to draw from.  This could inevitably leave the living summoners struggling to provide the necessary magic to complete the ritual, which had a tendency to lead the magicians to their deaths due to the complete expense of their life force.

In essence, it was like having a group of people attempting to fill rapidly emptying bowl.  If someone stopped supplying water, everyone else would have to work twice as hard to fill the bowl.

The only difference was that the “bowl” was a summoning ritual, and the “water” was magic and life force.

These were only a few reasons why ritual summonings were illegal.  They were dangerous to those performing the ritual, not to mention that there was the possibility that whatever was summoned decided that its summoners or anything nearby was its new meal.

And considering that the information Goro received from his employers had made it explicitly clear that this group was trying to summon a demon to use as an attack dog, this meant that the brunette had little qualms in shooting them all in the head.

Unfortunately, Goro also had been having an extremely unlucky day.

With four bodies on the floor and the last summoner still chanting, Goro fired again, a split second before the circle flared a blinding green and the candle light died suddenly, leaving the basement pitch black.

Goro stood in shock for a minute breath caught in his throat as the beginnings of panic seized his lungs.

He kept still and silent, hoping that, if the summoning had been completed, he would hear whatever being it had dragged out if it moved to attack him.  

His chances were slim, Goro knew, if a demon had been summoned he had little to fight it off with.  He always carried two mercury bullets just in case, but they would only slow a demon down.

While mostly made like any other bullets, Mercury bullets had two main differences.  They were actually hollow in the center, the small pocket of mercury in a bullet could slowly poison a demon from the inside out after the demons acidic blood dissolved a bullet enough to reach that pocket of mercury.  In addition to that, during its creation, each Mercury bullet was doused in Holy Water in order to harden the metal.

Yet, they wouldn't be able to stop a determined demon from ripping his head off.  Those two bullets were all he had however. Something to buy him time at most, and a small distraction at least.

And with no magic at his disposal, Goro knew that whatever luck he may have had had bolted out the nearest exit without so much as a wave goodbye.

Yeah, if there was a demon in this room, Goro was a dead man.

As if to mock him, Goro noticed bright red eyes peering at him from the basement floor.

Who had he killed in some alternate universe to deserve this?

* * *

 

He was bored.

Excessively and extremely bored.

Really.

Normally he loved his job.  The chaos, the people, the danger, it was what made everything _fun_.

But lately, everything had been quiet.  There had been no fights for him to break up, no fires to watch burn, and his favorite people were out on vacation.

To make matters even more disastrous, he had just finished his paperwork.

His formerly backlogged paperwork that had become several towers spread across his office floor (almost to the point where he had a small path through them to reach his desk) and had been piling up for just over a decade.

It was both a miracle and a catastrophe.

A miracle because he won the bet he had made with his second in command about ever finishing it, and a catastrophe because it had been the _only thing_ that had kept him _occupied_.

Now all he had was silence, and the not so great view out of his office window.

…

Hell, this was a Nightmare.

Akira had never done well with boredom.  As a matter of fact, his attempts to avoid it actually lead him to where he was now, staring out upon a dark city, cavern walls so high they stretched upwards into darkness , building clustered everywhere the eye could see, skyscrapers that imitated pillars as they reached upwards to that infinite ceiling with only intermittent lights as a sign of life.

It was always dark here, with only lamps and fire to illuminate this city, and while Akira could sometimes look upon it and see the rough beauty in the shape of it, he couldn't help but want more.

He had heard of the human world, with being as fickle as nature itself, a world ever turning and a sense of chaotic change that followed the shift of colors across a never ending, free sky.

Of course, there were also tales of warning, of demons bound to a humans will, imprisoned and forced to do their masters bidding until they were released.  Of humans who wielded magic so skillfully they could overturn cities, or wield weapons that could kill in an instant without magic to power them.

As a young demon, long before boredom sunk into his skin and nestled itself in the marrow of his very bones, Akira had been fascinated with humans.  At least, until he had run out of stories to read and then the boredom had hit. He had resorted to training his body and learning stealth, and then he’d sought out other demons, for knowledge or fights and over time he had just grown strong enough that he had no one else to fight but the demon lord of his home realm.

So he had.

Akira still wasn't sure if it was his best or worst idea to be frank.

He hadn't realized until afterwards what he had done- his lust for knowledge and strength to break the monotony of his boredom, followed by each challenge he’d issued to the highly ranked or skilled demons in the realm, followed by his subsequent wins had slowly come to have more meaning than he realized.

Each of the Seven Realms were different, ruled by their Kings.  However, one characteristic spanned across all Seven Realms- the King’s Trials.  The King’s Trials, while their content changed from realm to realm, were a series of actions or challenges that were necessary to be completed or overcome in order to challenge the Realms current King for their position.

Until Akira had found himself issuing a challenge to the current King of his realm, Akira had failed to realize what he had been doing until he stood in front of that throne.

Now, Akira stood, staring down upon his home- his city- _his realm_ \- and wonders about the world above.

* * *

 

He feels it, like a burning itch under his skin.

Its almost unbareable- like a fire under his skin that starts out only as embers but as minutes pass, it slowly grows into a fiery pain until it feels like there's an inferno inside him, boiling his blood, searing his organs and blistering bone.

And then all at once, it condenses into a harsh tugging sensation that nearly sends him to the floor- a few seconds later it happens again, harsher, the third time send him to the floor- causing him to close his eyes against the agony even as vertigo hits him.  He looses his grip on the desk he instinctually grabbed in order to halt his face plant to the floor as another wave of pain hits him, and he'S falling to his knees before he even realists it.  Eyes shut, gravity his enemy and all his nerves on fire, and then his knees hit solid ground and the pain just- vanishes.

He takes a moment to take stock of himself- searching for any lingering pain before he slowly peels his eyes open.

All he can see is darkness for a minute until his eyes adjust- but what's more important is the scent of freshly spilled blood mixed in with the scent of sulfur, gunpowder, fear, determination and rage blending together in a heedy cocktail.

And then he's looking up, meeting a crimson brown gaze of determination and hinted fear. 

 

 


End file.
